Security traps to avoid when configuring cloud firewalls

Wrongly configured setups in cloud-based applications are still harming many mid to large scale enterprises.

Many of these deployments become catastrophic & often make a splash in the media.

In today’s world, cyber criminals are less likely to attempt undermining network structures using sophisticated hacks; instead they simply exploit errors made in the configurations to bring them the desired access.

Even keeping configuration in their default settings can make your system architecture more prone than it otherwise can be.

Gartner, the world’s leaders in IT risk research predict that by 2020, 95% of cloud security incidents will be occur due to these oversights.

When it comes to managing the firewalls in the cloud, data centre professionals are less likely to appoint a specific member of personnel to be responsible for firewall security. Figures state that 33% of respondents say it was not defined who was solely responsible.

This is how pitfalls can occur.

Preparing for 2019

It is time for your business’s CTO / CIO to consider the new year’s cyber resolutions for 2019.

They need to be able to prioritise organisational processes without getting distracted by cloud vendor challenges.

Staying in the know is your power when it comes to the cloud. Gaining a deeper insight of what the cloud provider affords your IT team is essential if potential pitfalls are to be sidestepped.

It is encouraging to see a web service provider like Amazon committing to adding robustness & functionality with more prescriptive, best practice tutorials for the less experienced cloud architects.

Deployments of a traditional firewall occurs at the perimeter of the network. The challenges most firms face with cloud-native & micro-service environments is that there no clear defined perimeter.

“Gartner, the world’s leaders in IT risk research predict that by 2020, 95% of cloud security incidents will be occur due to these oversights”

Working with your cloud provider is a collaboration, and often both sides need to meet the necessary checks to keep your firewall running the latest firmware and configured appropriately.

As sure as you may be that your cloud provider is running the latest security engines to defeat network threats, many cloud vendors absolve themselves responsibility from their end users security strategies.

So your company’s network operations need to know all about the different offerings your cloud vendor provide, what implications can occur and what firewall safeguards can be added to your plan if the availability exists.

Need help on where to begin?

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